sábado, 6 de outubro de 2012

HTC One X+: Tegra 3 + LTE

HTC recently announced a successor to the HTC One X, the One X+. The One X+, at least on paper, is a very good device. The special feature of this device is that it brings NVIDIA's Tegra 3 SoC and LTE connectivity in the same device, something that hasn't happened before, because, of course, the Tegra 3 was considered to be incompatible with LTE modems. This has been a large selling point for Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 SoC, and is why there are so few Tegra 3-powered smartphones right now. Of course, HTC may have caused a change in this pattern with the One X+. Besides LTE, the One X+ also has Corning Gorilla Glass 2, a 720p HD screen, and will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, with HTC's Sense UI 4+, keeping the 8.9mm thickness of the One X weighing only 5 grams more (135g in the One X+ vs 130g in the One X).

The One X+ is one of the few devices so far that use Corning's latest Gorilla Glass 2, for the best scratch resistance. The screen is also very crisp, at 312ppi. The One X+'s design is pretty similar to the One X's design, too. This is the first device shipping with NVIDIA's AP37 Tegra 3 SoC, sometimes referred to as Tegra 3+, which is supposed to be a refresh to the Tegra lineup, so yes, there's still the usual Tegra problem, the relatively weak memory controller. If what these specs say are true, and the One X+ uses LPDDR2 memory, then we've got a problem, because single-channel LPDDR2 has proved not to be enough to keep up with the comptition. While the CPU will be very fast, actually, just a bit faster than the Tegra T33-powered ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity, the very high clock speed, together with the aged 40nm process, makes power consumption a possible issue. HTC needs to put a very large battery into the One X+ (although without any increase in thickness, I don't think that's very possible). The GPU in Tegra AP37 is rumored to be faster, too, specifically, 25% faster, but there's still no evidence to back that up. So, in terms of performance, the One X+ is good, for now, although it will probably not be nearly as powerful as the A6-powered iPhone 5, or Snapdragon S4 Pro smartphones, like the LG Optimus G. But in any case, it is the best that NVIDIA can offer at the moment.

The One X+ will come out in October, and will be available in an international model, and is also headed for AT&T.